


Tiger, Tiger

by mydogwatson



Series: PostcardTales III [22]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drugs, Fluff, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Tattos, london zoo, soft toy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11101560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: The path to happiness for Sherlock and John is sometimes hard, but they always get there in the end.





	Tiger, Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> These are taking longer to get posted than I had hoped, but here is the next one. Sometimes I just like to keep things fluffy, although with drugs and war playing a part the fluff takes its time. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this one and as always I love hearing from you.
> 
> Only two more postcards to go and then I hope to get back to my long historical AU...

1

It was not an optimal way to start the day. Even he was willing to admit that. [Despite some evidence to the contrary, Sherlock Holmes was a realist. Or a pragmatist. Practical truth or useful truth. Whatever worked in a particular circumstance.] Truth was, that by any measure, it was a shite beginning to the day.

Of course, he was assuming, [always dangerous] that it actually was day. He could not tell whether the pale light filtering through his still-lowered eyelids was coming from the only window in the room or from the single lamp he remembered sitting in the corner, so he had no way of knowing for sure and didn’t really care anyway. For the moment, all that mattered was trying to move. One body part at a time seemed the way to go. The most important question then became which body part to start with. 

For no particular reason, Sherlock decided that toes were optimal. In passing, he also wondered where his shoes and socks had gone. Surely, at some point anyway, he had been wearing both items. Although what that point in time might have been was honestly a bit unclear. For the moment, he set that puzzle aside.

So, toes it was. He concentrated on making them wriggle.

A part of Sherlock’s mind was aware of a certain…melancholy, perhaps, in the fact that six months ago he had been deeply engaged in writing a rather brilliant paper on the topic of Quantum Entanglement & Nonlocality and now the power of his mind was centred on wriggling his toes. Yes, he could appreciate that many people might find that happenstance to be sad. He himself preferred not to attach irrelevant emotions to such things. Life was what it was.

But then: success! His toes moved. Okay. Good.

It occurred to him then that possibly that bastard Wilkes had stolen his footwear. Sounded like the kind of thing he would do.

Sherlock wondered if he should consider opening his eyes next.

But first, he decided to test his mind. After all, certain people kept telling him that his habit [not addiction!] would eventually damage his brain, which was absurd, of course. With only a couple of exceptions, Sherlock Holmes was always in control of things. Those exceptions, unfortunately, had been fairly dreadful; he freely admitted that. But his brain was fine, thank you very much, and he could prove it here and now.

He would conduct an experiment and discern what could be deduced about his surroundings without actually seeing anything. It was good to exercise all his senses on occasion.

To begin: smell. Well, that was almost too simple. Piss. Old Chinese food. A hint of pot. More than a hint of ether or stale old lady perfume lingering from the coke. The passing odour of sex, although Sherlock did not remember anything like that actually happening. Of course, he was not a religious man at all, he sent a prayer into the universe that if sex had actually been a part of the previous night Sebastian Wilkes had not been involved at all. That thought made him gag a little. Actually, the thought of sex at all made him gag.

Touch. The floor was wooden, clearly, and not a terribly comfortable place to have spent the night. It was sticky from the residue of things he did not want to think about. But, oddly, his cheek was not actually resting on the floor, but on something softer, something rather fuzzy. Probably a rug of some sort, but he could not be definitive about that until he opened his eyes.

Taste. Well, the less said about what the inside of his mouth tasted like the better. If he’d been feeling up to it, he might have stuck his tongue out just a little to explore his surroundings. His habit of licking odd things as an experiment was well-established and sometimes useful. But, at the moment, he was not keen to add anything else to the rubbish bin that his mouth already was.

Sound. Distant traffic noise, although he had no idea what road the sounds might be coming from. A siren at least a mile away. A man yelling on the pavement below. A television from above.

So, adding all of that data together, what was his conclusion?

It was elementary, really.

Sherlock Holmes had woken up on the floor of a rundown and probably abandoned flat, wherein the night before he had indulged in perhaps too much rather fine cocaine and possibly other substances that he could not quite remember at the moment. All in all, a fairly routine morning, then.

He finally opened his eyes and let out a very undignified squeak when he found himself staring into a pair of very black, very shiny eyes that were only a nose length away. Once he’d caught his breath, Sherlock realised that the eyes were not real. They were made of glass and inserted into a slightly squished head that adorned a tiger skin rug. A very old and very dirty rug. He was very glad that he hadn’t licked it. Eying the thing closely, he doubted that it was even a real tiger skin. Which was good, he thought.

Sherlock rolled over to stare at the ceiling, wondering if there might be any cocaine left. He didn’t need much. Just a little, to get his body moving.

Before he could search his pockets, however, he heard footsteps in the corridor outside the flat. Very familiar footsteps. Perfect. As if the morning were not already something of a mess. The door opened. “Go away, Mycroft,” Sherlock said immediately, not even looking over. He could sense his brother’s stare.

His brother just stood there, looking at him.

Sherlock wished the tiger beneath him were real and alive so that he could set it on the pompous git.

Mycroft ignored the surroundings. They might have been meeting in the familial dining room over kippers and scrambled eggs. “Mummy wanted me to pass along her congratulations on the publication of your paper on quantum entanglement. I did not tell her that you probably have no recollection of even writing it.”

Sherlock wanted to sneer at that. Wanted to make the expected quip about the failure of Mycroft’s latest diet attempt. Wanted to recite the opening paragraph of the paper, just to prove that his mind was still operating perfectly.

But he said nothing, because suddenly he was just so tired. He was deathly weary of it all. Especially his own life. Inexplicably and abruptly, he only wanted to weep. 

It seemed that Mycroft must have seen something in his face, because his brother said nothing; instead he just stepped forward and held out a hand.

After a moment, Sherlock took that hand, gripping it hard enough to be painful, although Mycroft did not flinch, and let himself be pulled to his feet.

 

2

No one who had grown up in the Watson household would ever underestimate the really bad decisions that could be made under the influence of alcohol in excess. John would have agreed with that statement whole-heartedly, at least when he was sober. But on the night in question, he was very far from that.

Not that he didn’t have good reason to over-indulge on this particular occasion.

It was, after all, his last weekend in London before shipping out to Afghanistan. He had come into the capital with three mates from his unit and they were all determined to make the most of the time they had before heading off to war. John had thought the excursion was somewhat romantic. Not in a stupidly sentimental way, of course. More like what he might have seen in an old black and white film about war. Something starring Cary Grant, maybe. [His mother, before she reached the point that the only thing she was truly interested in was her next drink, used to love old movies and she liked it when John curled up with her to watch.] 

For this weekend, the goals were simple: Drink too much. Eat too much. Get laid.

None of those plans explained exactly why John Hamish Watson found himself sitting in a black leather chair in a tiny shop in Soho, just after midnight. Or why he was about to let a purple-haired young lady with too many piercings to count attack him with something called a tattoo gun. Well, except probably the plan about drinking too much. That definitely played a part in what was happening.

This would certainly qualify as one of those regrettable alcohol-fuelled decisions.

But his mates were all gung-ho and John found himself swept along. Maybe it had something to do with confronting his mortality.

The woman slid her chair next to his and smiled, revealing yet another piercing. “Okay, sweetie,” she said. “What’s your pleasure?”

John had looked for a long time at all of the designs hanging on the walls of the shop. Some of them made him wonder who the hell would want something like that on their body. One of his friends had gone for a heart with Mum in the middle. Another paid tribute to his fiancé by putting Amy on his arm and the third went for a snake winding around his wrist. Apparently, he used to have a boa constrictor as a pet. Or so he said. But John had no one or nothing to be sentimental over. So, for no particular reason that he could name, he settled on the small image of a rather noble looking tiger. He held the picture out to the woman. “This,” he said. “On my shoulder.”

He had expected it to hurt and it did, but still being somewhat drunk helped a bit with the pain. It took a long time for the job to be done, but when it was finally finished, he liked the result. Not showy, but very nice. He halfway listened as the woman gave him aftercare instructions, but did not bother to mention either the fact that he was a doctor who knew all of that already or that he was off to a war zone in just a couple of days.

John didn’t get laid that weekend, but he did name the tiger on his arm and over time he stopped feeling foolish about it and grew pretty fond of Albert.

So very fond, in fact, that when several years later a bullet and the resulting infection destroyed the image, John felt the loss more than he would have expected. Or maybe it was just part of the greater grief over the loss of all that he had been and wanted to be.

 

3

He was somewhat surprised at just how quiet it was.

Granted, it was nearly 02:00, but still, one would expect the residents to be rather noisier. Although probably they were all sleeping, which only went to prove that humans were not the only boring creatures on earth.

The only real sound Sherlock could hear was the distant hum of middle-of-the-night traffic coming all the way across the park from Marylebone Road. Although he suspected that there was probably a security guard or two somewhere on the premises, it was probably the usual sort of idiot drawn to that kind of work and if necessary Sherlock could definitely outrun an overweight alcoholic.

After just wandering around the zoo for a while, he sat on a bench in front of a tiger enclave. At first it seemed as if all the big cats were tucked inside their shelter, sleeping like everyone else. But after a moment, Sherlock saw movement amongst the branches and the vines and then a tiger appeared.

It was a very long creature, at least 2.4 meters, but also very slender, which made him look even longer. Sherlock got up for a moment to read the information sign. Judging by the picture, this was a Sumatran tiger. Panthera Tigris Sumatrae.

He went back to the bench and pulled out his phone to do a little research.

Meanwhile, the tiger was sitting very close to the glass and seemed to be making some sort of study of Sherlock in return.

Most of what Sherlock found on-line were things he could see for himself. The Sumatran’s stripes were closer together than any other species and there was more hair on the face and neck.

Man and cat stared at one another as, far away, a siren cut through the night.

The closing bit of the Google entry made Sherlock frown.

_Due to loss of habitat and poaching for their fur, the Sumatran tiger is considered highly endangered. Some experts already say that it is too late to save the species._

Sherlock put his phone away. He looked at the tiger again, wondering if it had a name. Did the zoo name its creatures? It seemed a bit sad if no one cared enough to give each animal a name of its own.

“I wouldn’t pay much attention to that whole extinction thing,” he said after a moment. “Experts. What do they know?” He reached for a cigarette. There were four left in what he had decided would be his very last pack. Not because Mycroft [the hypocrite] was insisting he stop, of course, but just because he felt like having one more triumph over the chemicals that had dominated his life for so long. Well, with the exception of the chemicals contained in nicotine patches; that would not be cheating, surely. He was not, after all, a saint.

He inhaled deeply and then blew a smoke ring.

The tiger did not seem to approve.

“I speak with some authority on the subject, you know, because they all thought I was going to be extinct,” Sherlock said. “Three times they said I was dead. Yet here I am.”

Here he was, indeed. After that first [completely accidental] overdose, followed by all those months in rehab. Followed by a short and manic period of freedom, testing the limits of that liberty and failing again. More rehab followed, with Mycroft definitely losing patience. Only the fear of disappointing Mummy kept his brother from giving up on trying to save Sherlock. There was one more [possibly less accidental] overdose that was labelled a suicide attempt. Although Sherlock still wasn’t sure about that. But he was sure about the fact that he never intended again to suffer the stink and indignity of the hospital A&E ward or the agony of rehab.

“You want the truth?” he asked. “The fact is, I just got bored with it all. That’s why I quit. So now I am ready for something else.”

He wondered if the tiger would be interested in hearing about the three cases he had solved for that newly-minted detective inspector, whose name escaped him at the moment.

“I’m clean now and I am going to solve mysteries. I have been thinking about it and I am going to be a consulting detective. The only one in the world. I already have a very interesting website set up.” He thought that Blackbeard [a good name] looked impressed at that news. “So, don’t you give up hope. Really. If I can survive and end up doing just what I want to do, there must be hope for you. Maybe we can both be happy. I might ask the people in charge here if they couldn’t find another Sumatran tiger so that you might have some company.” That sounded like something Mycroft could handle and he decided to bring it up with his brother as soon as possible. 

He crushed out the cigarette and, because Blackbeard was watching, tossed the butt into the rubbish can behind the bench. He gave the tiger a friendly wave and then headed across the zoo towards Marylebone Road. This was a nice area of London, he mused. Maybe one day he could leave the dump in which he was now living and get a flat somewhere around here. That would be good, because clients were probably not going to be keen to venture into his current fourth-floor studio. Mycroft was not entirely wrong to call it a putrid dump.

Sherlock moved through the mostly quiet streets, prowling London as if it were his own private jungle. Solitary. Maybe a bit dangerous. As alone as the tiger in its cage.

 

4

His sister had sent a package.

God forbid that she would trouble herself enough to take a train to Birmingham and actually visit him in hospital, of course. If Clara were still around at all, she probably insisted that Harry at least acknowledge the fact that her brother was lying in Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Something of a war hero to some people.

Not that he gave a damn whether she visited him or not. They didn’t get on. Never had. The only benefit of Harry coming here was that it might have stopped him being an object of pity to the nurses, as the only patient on the war to never have a visitor.

John politely thanked the cheerful aide who delivered the box and declined her help in opening it. Then, on his own again [well, on his own except for everyone else on the ward; but with the drapery pulled around his bed it was almost like being alone] John didn’t bother opening the box at all.

He ignored it for several hours, all way through lunch and the afternoon visit from the physical therapist, but finally the package began to annoy him just by its presence. It really was not easy opening it one-handed, but he gritted his teeth and persevered. Finally, the tape gave way and he could see the inside of the box. On the very top of the contents, there was a cheery Get Well card featuring several gambolling puppies. There was no handwritten message inside. He tossed the card aside.

Well, he was pleased by the HobNobs, at least. One package of plain and one of chocolate. Next up were two paperback mysteries of the sort he liked to read [he sensed Clara’s influence there]. On the very bottom of the box was something wrapped in wrinkled, slightly dusty tissue paper.

The first thought that John had, once he had removed the paper, was that he was apparently more sentimental that he’d thought. Lying there was a small, terribly worn plush tiger that he was amazed to have forgotten all about. Bert was his name, after some character from a telly show he and Harry had watched. He had been John’s close companion and comforting bed-mate for many years. One ear had been chewed nearly off.

With an almost tender finger, John reached into the box and stroked the soft fur, blinking quickly.

He would have to thank Harry for this, much as it galled him.

Later that night, when the rest of the patients on the ward were sleeping more or less peacefully, depending on their own particular nightmares, John was still awake. He was eating chocolate HobNobs and had Bert lying on his chest. It was almost as if he were seven years old again, trying to ignore the loud arguing between his mother and father going on downstairs. Bert was keeping him company as always.

Even now, as a grown man, a [former] soldier and a [possibly former] doctor, with no real future to speak of, he took some comfort from the presence of a soft toy. 

Maybe it was silly and not what was expected of an officer in Her Majesty’s forces, but John didn’t much care. No one could see, after all, and it was better than being alone.

 

5

“So,” John muttered, hurrying to keep pace with Sherlock while also trying to wake himself up completely. Not that long ago he had been sound asleep in bed and even with the now-considerable practice he’d had, going from zero to sixty kilometres in fifteen minutes still took some effort. “What’s the case? Why are we in the zoo in the middle of the night?”

Sherlock glanced at him. “There isn’t a case, John,” he replied. The ‘obviously’ was implied. “Did I say that there was a case?”

“Well, no, not really. However, you did charge into the bedroom, yelling at me to get up, throwing clothes at me. Telling me to hurry. I made an assumption.”

“Ha. Always dangerous to assume, John. I have warned you about that so many times.”

John thought about arguing the point, but decided not to bother. His flatmate-friend-lover played these games frequently and it was best sometimes just to go along. Especially at 02:00.

Sherlock slowed a bit and reached out to take John’s hand as they kept walking. “I want you to meet an old friend,” he said finally.

Which, given the circumstances [a closed zoo in the middle of the night] made very little sense, but John decided that he wasn’t especially bothered. That in itself might be slightly worrying, but it seemed a concern for another time. Or never. Whatever.

Finally, Sherlock stopped in front of a large enclosure and sat on a bench, pulling John down next to him. When John started to say something, Sherlock held up a hand to silence him. “Wait,” he whispered.

They sat without talking for several minutes, until John finally noticed the foliage moving behind the glass of the enclosure. A large tiger emerged and walked towards the front of the space.

“Hello,” Sherlock said quietly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

John thought that it looked as if the cat were listening, which seemed unlikely, but this was Sherlock, so John ruled nothing out.

“We both seem to have escaped extinction more than once,” Sherlock went on. “And my horrid brother tells me that after all this time, he has finally managed to find you a friend.”

There was more movement and as if on cue, another, smaller tiger emerged from the greenery.

Sherlock lifted their joined hands. “This is my partner, John,” he said. “John, this is Blackbeard. And his companion.”

John did not know if he were actually supposed to greet the tigers, or even how to do that, so he settled for a pleasant nod.

“Blackbeard and I had some dark days, John,” Sherlock said slowly, carefully. “But we both managed to survive.”

“And more,” John put in. “You are flourishing.”

“Thanks to you.”

John squeezed his hand, wanting to point out that they had saved one another, but instead he kept watching Blackbeard[?} and the female tiger as they sat side by side, both apparently charmed by the human who was smiling at them. Well, John could understand that all too well, as he had been charmed by that same smile immediately.

Sherlock was now looking down at their still-joined hands, rubbing his thumb across John’s palm. “John,” he said softly, “I wanted to bring you here tonight for a particular reason.”

“To meet Blackbeard?”

“In part, yes. But mostly because I wanted to ask you something.” He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Blackbeard gives me courage.”

John was momentarily bemused, because self-deprecation was not a trait Sherlock often displayed, but there was something else in his lover’s eyes, something almost fragile, that seemed more important. He lifted his free hand and pushed an errant curl from Sherlock’s forehead. “Courage?” he said.

“Will you marry me?” The words came out in a rush. “Damn,” Sherlock said then. “I had a whole speech planned.”

John knew he was grinning now. “You got the important words out.”

Sherlock just looked at him, one brow quirked.

“Yes,” John said. “Yes, I will marry you. Tonight, if you like.”

After a moment, Sherlock pulled him closer and then they were kissing. John could still taste a hint of the red wine they’d had with dinner hours earlier. Or possibly Sherlock had poured another glass after John was in bed. When they finally pulled apart, they both glanced at the tigers, who only stared back. Before anyone could speak, a loud shout rang out.

“Hey! Hey! What are you doing in here?”

They both turned around and saw a security guard headed their way, his flashlight bobbing.

Sherlock grabbed John’s hand again and pulled him up. “Run,” he said.

As they started to move, Sherlock shouted back over his shoulder. “Bye, Blackbeard!”

And then they ran, not stopping until they were safely out of the park and back on Marylebone Road. Once there, they more or less collapsed against one another, laughing and kissing. “Ridiculous,” John said.

“But not the most ridiculous thing you have ever done,” Sherlock pointed out.

“No?”

Sherlock smiled at him. “You just agreed to marry me.”

Well, that called for another kiss. Or two. Possibly more.

A police car cruised by and the driver honked at them. Maybe he recognised them.

“People will talk,” John said.

“Good,” Sherlock replied.

Finally, they walked slowly back to Baker Street, talking quietly, still holding hands. The conversation was wide-ranging, starting with how Sherlock first met Blackbeard the tiger and moving on to wedding plans and for some reason that John was not absolutely clear about, bees and honey and maybe a dog. A cottage in Sussex that Sherlock had apparently inherited.

It sounded as if Sherlock had the rest of their lives planned and that suited John down to the ground.

They crept upstairs at Baker Street, not wanting to wake Mrs Hudson. All the words had faded and they remained silent as they undressed and finally got into bed. Sherlock wrapped his arms around John and pulled him close.

They would make love soon, John knew that and his body thrummed gently with anticipation, but for the moment he was content to be embraced and listen to whispered endearments from his fiancé.

He was content.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from: Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester


End file.
